Joe Biden: “The new guys are so gung ho being part of NATO, they would probably decide to give each of us citizenship if we asked…”

“The new guys are so gung ho being part of NATO, they would probably decide to give each of us citizenship if we asked for it. I am not at all worried about the new guys. I am worried about the old guys. We should have a debate someday on the floor, unrelated to expansion, about the utility of NATO because, in truth, many in the Defense Department and many--some on this floor-- think we are misallocating our resources to NATO, period; unrelated to Kosovo, unrelated to anything else. So I call everyone's attention to the subtext in this debate that really doesn't relate to new members. It relates to whether NATO has outlived its usefulness and whether we should be spending billions of dollars on NATO without any new members. It is a legitimate debate. I think it is dead wrong, but I think it is a legitimate debate. With regard to the issue of whether there is a fait accompli when an embossed document ends up on our desk, I might point out that my friend from Virginia had no difficulty with an embossed document that was the single most important treaty in the minds of our NATO allies--no difficulty rejecting it. It was called the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.”